Contents

Setting

The game takes place in Vice City, a city acknowledged to be in the state of Florida, United States. Vice
City is modeled heavily after Miami. Implementing beachfront real estate, palm trees, beaches, and nightclubs,
Vice City satirizes and re-creates 1980s American pop culture with the in-game soundtrack featuring songs from
bands such as Motley Crue (rock), Iron Maiden (rock), Joe Jackson (pop/rock), Michael Jackson (pop), REO
Speedwagon (rock), and many more.
The game is set in the year 1986, hence the pop culture encountered in the game.

Storyline

The story of the game follows a man named Tommy Vercetti, an Italian mafia affiliate in his 30s who was just
released from prison after fifteen years for killing eleven men. During the first of a series of cocaine
deals, the deal is ambushed, Tommy's bodyguards and the cocaine dealer are killed. When Tommy informs his boss
Sonny Forelli of the ambush, he has a meltdown and threatens Tommy with the consequences of trying to cheat the
Mafia, which he is accused of because of the Ambush. Tommy meets up with his lawyer; Ken Rosenberg who leads him
to Colonel Cortez; a mid level drug dealer. Cortez expresses his regret over the ambush and promises to
investigate and find the persons responsible for the ambush. Tommy later meets Cortez's daughter; Mercedez, who is
a prostitute who befriends Tommy and becomes his best friend.

While he waits for the outcome of the investigation he meets Kent Paul; a British record producer, Avery
Carrington; a real estate developer from Texas, and Lance Vance, the brother of Victor Vance; who is seeking
revenge. Victor Vance, the drug dealer who was killed in the ambush was earlier the protagonist of [[Grand Theft
Auto: Vice City Stories]] set in 1984. Over time, Tommy does work for Colonel Cortez and becomes his regular
hitman and errand-boy. On one subsequent mission for Ricardo Diaz in which the deal is ambushed and Tommy is
forced to kill approaching enemy gang members in order to protect him. Diaz later hires Tommy to help advance his
agenda. Diaz is a middle aged Hispanic man with severe anger management problems so severe that during the
cutscene for the mission "The Fastest Boat", he shoots his VCR with a pistol because he thought it was broken.
It is revealed seconds later that the VCR simply wasn't plugged in. Diaz defends the action by saying "don't
worry, I can buy a hundred more".

The story goes on to include Tommy learning that one of Cortez's friends was responsible for the raid. Afterwards
Cortez begins to suspect that Diaz; the owner of the large mansion on Starfish Island, was responsible for the
raid. Tommy later assassinates Diaz with the help of Lance Vance. Lance Vance attempted to take revenge by himself
and failed, which forced Tommy to rush across the city and rescue him from a compound. After control of the cartel
is seized and Colonel Cortez escapes the country to escape arrest, Tommy moves on to seize control of an ice cream
factory to manufacture cocaine, a printing plant to manufacture counterfeit currency, and a number of other
establishments.

Gameplay

The player starts off living in an oceanfront hotel. The game follows Grand Theft Auto's traditional formula of
completing "missions" in exchange for storyline progress, money, and the ability to complete later missions. Sound
effects, visual effects, and physics are almost completely identical to those found in Grand Theft Auto III.
Like in Grand Theft Auto III, jumping in the Atlantic Ocean will result in instant death due to programming
difficulties/programmer laziness that were encountered during development. In addition, the requirement to refill
vehicle gas tanks; a highly asked for feature in Grand Theft Auto Games, was cut before release.